


Sentinel

by freoduweard



Category: Final Fantasy X
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Claustrophobia, Explicit Language, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Major Character Injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-24
Updated: 2015-09-24
Packaged: 2018-04-23 03:28:04
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4861274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/freoduweard/pseuds/freoduweard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the Cavern of the Stolen Fayth, an encounter with a fiend does not go well for anyone.</p><p>Commission fic for the talented and delightful youngsterhammy over on tumblr.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sentinel

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hamstr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hamstr/gifts).



> A note before we begin. Yes, I know that Guard/Sentinel can’t actually block Karma. I’m calling Artistic License for the sake of Drama.
> 
> Ability Sphere: Guard - [Grid: Auron] - An ability wherein the user will intercept all (physical) attacks on the party, regardless of the health status of their allies.
> 
> Ability Sphere: Sentinel - [Grid: Auron] - An improved version of Guard, with the user taking a defensive stance, thus receiving less damage from the attack.

[金]———————————————————

He was not going to refuse to go into the cave because of some childish fear. He was  _not_. There was rumoured to be a fayth within, and a powerful one at that. They were on Pilgrimage, and Braska needed  _all_  of the aeons. What if this one held the key to defeating Sin for good? What if, with the power of this fayth, Braska would have no need to call the Final Aeon? And with no Final Aeon, he wouldn’t…

Auron took a deep breath and steeled himself.  _I am a **guardian**. I have my duty. I will not let Braska venture into this pit of darkness with Jecht alone at his side._

_Even if it terrifies me._

Jecht had already gone ahead into the dark, sunken maw of the cavern, but Braska lingered just outside, looking back over his shoulder. It was not like Auron to be anywhere but at his side, and the look on his face spoke of mild confusion. Auron squared his shoulders and strode forward.  _We will find the fayth, then be gone from this place. In and out, no lingering._

_Easy._

——

 _Yojimbo_ , he snarled silently,  _is a fayth-damned **churl**. What kind of aeon  **sells**  its services? Does it not know of the ravages of Sin? Does it not know of the ultimate price that a summoner must already pay? And what  **possible**  use could an  **aeon**  have for  **gil**?_

Auron was not feeling charitable in the slightest. As if the cavern itself was not bad enough, with the fog-choked darkness and the closeness of the walls -  _falling crushing burying_  - then there was the sheer  _gall_  of a fayth that demanded to be  _paid_. They had precious little gil to begin with, and even after haggling him down - a skill which Jecht had proven surprisingly adept at - they were left with what was likely the bare minimum with which they could replenish their supplies before the trek up Mount Gagazet. After they passed the Ronso on the mountain, there would be no use for money.

Because all that remained after Gagazet was Zanarkand.

There was a momentary lull in both his thoughts and his fuming temper when Braska suddenly stopped, the summoner glancing at one of the forks in the tunnel ahead of them. Jecht groaned. “Aw, hell. Don’t tell me that you forgot which way we hafta turn…”

_Oh, please, no. Let us not spend a single moment longer in this suffocating hole in the ground than we have to…_

But Braska raised his hand, still not speaking, and Jecht fell silent. They could hear the dripping of water, the eerie cries of fiends elsewhere in the warren of caves, but nothing that would indicate…

A wavering light in the darkness.

Auron’s blood ran cold.

_Tonberry._

Its soft moccasins made hardly a sound against the stone floor of the tunnel. There it was, half-hidden in shadow, looking back at them with its cave-creature-wide eyes. It blinked, slowly, a slight tilt to its head as if it were evaluating the three of them. The candle in its lantern threw contorted shadows against the walls - the light did not seem at all natural, as if it were proper fire, but instead more like the glow of pyreflies, shimmering and otherworldly.

A glance out of the corner of his eye showed him Braska’s face, deathly pale. Fear had drained the blood away, and the summoner’s grip on his staff was white-knuckled. He was easily as tense as Auron was, ready to bolt if the fiend so much as twitched.  _Fight or flight response. In this case, flight. We must **run** , and quickly…_

Braska’s gaze flicked over to him for a bare moment, then towards the tunnel to the left.  _That way_. Auron shifted forward, the sound of his boots crunching on the ground hardly enough to silence the pounding of his heart, and maneuvered himself between the fiend and Braska, lifting his hand to signal  _flee_ …

“‘ey, it’s just a little thing! Little an’ ugly! What’re you two actin’ like limp-dicked wusses for?”

Once, Auron would have knocked him out for the insult. More recently, he would just have rolled his eyes and smacked Jecht upside the back of the head hard enough to knock his bandanna off. But now, in this situation, he simply froze in complete shock.

_Jecht doesn’t know. He didn’t grow up with the tales of warning…_

_'Every bad thing you do, the Tonberry knows, and the Tonberry remembers. It gathers all your bad deeds in its lantern, and the candle feeds on the evil energy. The more sinful you are, the brighter the Tonberry’s light glows. And if it ever finds you - and if you are bad enough, it **will**  find you - then it will open the latch of its lantern, and unleash all the wickedness you have ever committed back upon you in one fell blow._

_So remember to always do good, little one, and repent of your sins against Yevon, lest one day you find yourself in a dark, dark place, and the only light is from the lantern of a Tonberry.'_

“Jecht,  ** _no_** _!_ ”

Both his and Braska’s voices rang out, falling oddly flat in the dank air of the tunnel. But it was too late. Jecht had leaped forward, and with a single swing from his great board of a blade knocked the fiend head over tail, the little body tumbling back into the darkness. The blitzer huffed in satisfaction, eyeing the area where the light of the lantern still glowed. “Aw, come on guys, it ain’t that tough…”

But Auron was already running, sprinting towards Jecht with all the speed that cold, certain terror could muster, and body-checked him out of the way just as the flickering candlelight blazed into a sickly aurora.

**_Karma._ **

Pain. Sheer, blinding  _agony_.

Swallowing ground glass might have been less painful. Gasping for air, he could not  _breathe_ , not when it felt that his lungs were on fire, each breath a million tiny torturing needles, stabbing him from the inside out. It was as if he were hit with Thundaga after Thundaga after Thundaga, countless times over, burning through his nerves until there was nothing left but smoke and ash. The strength left his limbs, and Auron collapsed to the ground, landing on hands and knees, numb to all else but each new lance of pain.

The light of a hastily-cast  _Curaga_  blasted over him, and he looked up just as that light was fading, just in time to see the form of the Tonberry - close,  _too close_ , but he had done that himself, to keep Jecht’s foolish head on his shoulders, and now it was bare steps away. He was close enough to see the pupil of its lidless eye shrink to a mere pinprick in the bright light of the spell, see the etched grain-pattern of the steel of its knife.

_This is the thing that nightmares are made of._

Flinging his weight back, he barely managed to stumble to his feet; the  _Curaga_  had done much, but not nearly enough, and the pain from that effort alone flashed white across his field of vision. The knife glinted in the wavering lantern-light, and in its dull reflection, he saw his doom approach.

Every muscle seared with pain, but the desperate will to live was far stronger. In one swift, agonizing movement, he wrenched the sword from his back and swung it around - not to strike, but to brace the broad edge between himself and the fiend. Metal hit metal with a hellish  _skkrrrreeeeeeeech!_ , the Tonberry’s butcher knife scraping across the shielding flat of his blade before slipping over the lower edge and burying to the hilt under his ribs.

Auron dropped like a stone.

[金]———————————————————–

The burble of moving water and a light rustling sound were the first things to greet him. Auron awoke slowly, as if he had to fight his way back to consciousness. The second thing that he noticed was a throbbing pain that seemed to reach down into his very bones.  ** _Everything_** _hurts. Damn._   _Did anyone catch the heraldry on whatever oversized chocobo ran me ov……the Tonberry!_  He sat bolt upright and  _immediately_  regretted it.

A quiet, soothing  _shhhhh_  came from the man seated beside him, Braska laying a hand on his guardian’s back as Auron hissed in pain. Breathing shakily, he forced his vision to focus. The walls of the valley rose around them, tinted shades of orange and red by the light of the setting sun. A firepit had been dug and wood lit; over the flame rested the smaller of their cookpots. Jecht was nowhere to be seen.

“Peace, Auron. You’re safe.  _We’re_  safe.” Braska’s thumb rubbed gently across the taut muscles of his back, and it was a sign of how off-balance he was that he leaned into the comforting touch, rather than tensing as he normally would at such casual physical contact. It also called attention to the fact that his torso was bare, for the most part. Gone were his undershirt and cuirass - the armor he could see lying to one side, with a great gaping hole where the fiend’s knife had punched straight through the hardened black leather. Bandages wrapped from his ribs to his waist, holding down a pad of fabric that was probably soaked with potion to speed the wound’s healing, and someone must have removed the tie that bound back his hair.

Breathing still hurt, though not nearly with the intensity that it had before - more like sandpaper down his windpipe and in his chest rather than the air itself scorching him with every breath. He turned his head to face his lord, worry writ in every line of the summoner’s expression, as if Braska expected him to collapse again at any moment. “You’re not hurt. Jecht, is he..?” Every word was an effort, his voice grating and gravelly.

He was hastily hushed, and his lord was quick to answer his half-spoken question. “Jecht is unharmed, thanks to you. He’s merely out of camp to search for more firewood, though I told him not to go far. The scrub bushes around here are tough and do not lose their branches easily, and he needs something with which to occupy himself at the moment.”

Braska rose, retrieving a cup from their supply pack and the pot from the fire, pouring whatever was inside into the cup in his hand, and Auron caught a glimpse of floating leaves. Tea, then. His lord kept a stash of it for special occasions, such as for after his time spent in one of the Chambers of the Fayth, or for when he was feeling particularly melancholy. It was nothing but a luxury, to be taken along with them on the Pilgrimage, but it was the only one that Braska would afford himself on the journey.

The summoner returned with the worn clay cup. Its walls were thick enough to keep the tea hot and yet not let one’s hands burn from said heat. Braska’s wife once owned a beautiful set of tea glasses, clear to let one see the tea and etched with gold filigree and bright enamels around the rim and base in the Al Bhed fashion, but those were hardly made for travel. The three of them made do instead with simple potter’s stoneware, sturdy enough not to break if dropped, and no decoration other than a layer of earth-tone green glaze.

Steam rose from the offered cup, as did the soothing scents of chamomile and ginger, along with others that Auron could not identify. But as he reached for it…

His hand was trembling.

It wasn’t supposed to do that.

His lord saw, of course, and something in those clear blue eyes spoke of pain.  _No, do not pity me, please…_  Braska laid his hand over Auron’s, gently pushing it out of the way despite the hoarse protests, and lifted the cup to his guardian’s lips himself. Burying both embarrassment and wounded pride, Auron drank, coughing as the first sip washed down his throat like rain on drought-parched soil. Braska was silent, patiently waiting, and when the fit had subsided, raised the tea once again.

When the cup was empty, and Auron could speak without rasping, he looked to his lord and asked the question that had plagued him since his waking. “H-how did we make it out? I don’t remember…”

“You wouldn’t. You…” Braska’s lips pressed into a thin line, and his grip tightened around the teacup. “Jecht - it was coming for him, we could tell, and Auron… I have never seen the man so frightened. I summoned Ifrit. It was the only thing that I could think to do that might buy us time. It… it turned to the aeon, and Jecht bolted for you. You were lying so still, and I could see blood on the ground…” There, he paused, taking a deep breath before he continued. “Jecht kicked your sword over to me and grabbed you. The tonberry… I thought that an aeon might be able to kill it, but Ifrit gave a roar - one that shook the very stone around us - and burst into pyreflies. And the tonberry still remained.”

“We turned and ran. We ran until we saw daylight, and kept running even then, until we were  _out_  of that… that  _place_.” A shudder rippled through Braska’s frame, the summoner’s eyes closing as if to will away what they had seen in that dark cavern. “ _Curaga_  was at my fingertips before I even realized what I was casting. Jecht hadn’t even put you down yet, and I was trying to stop the blood, stop… whatever magic was in that knife. It had to have been magic, so much more than just a blade; all it took was a single stab, and you… it went through your armor like it wasn’t even  _there_.”

“But it didn’t work,  _nothing was working_ , no matter how much healing magic I called upon.” Braska’s gaze fell to where his hands lay in the lap of his robes. Auron could barely make out their slight quiver, but the dull orange-yellow bit of feather in those elegant hands made the reason for his continued survival abundantly clear. “I… We almost  _lost_  you, Auron.”

It was one of their precious few tufts of phoenix down, rare as could be, and only used in the gravest of circumstances. The feather of a phoenix could bring a wounded person back from the very threshold of death. Normally, it would be a shining white-gold, infused with magics beyond mortal comprehension. Healing power spent, it now looked like nothing more than the down of a common chocobo, albeit with a more fiery colour.

“Jecht blames himself. Once we knew that you… that you would make it, I told him what it was that we faced. Well, half of what I told him ended up being children’s cautionary tales, but…” The summoner let out a shaky breath. “ I had never realized how much truth there was in them.”

“He didn’t know. He was just being his usual self, rash and imbecilic, and charging in without thinking.” Auron sighed. “I cannot say that he is  _not_  at least partially to blame. But who knows what it might have done anyway, had he not? Fiends  _always_  attack, once they’ve spotted their prey. We cannot say that it might have gone better, or any worse.”

“Why  _Auron_ ,” A little of the twinkle had returned to Braska’s eyes, though a shadow yet remained in the blue. “That sounds suspiciously as if you’re letting him off  _easy_. Naught but a few months ago, you would have been cursing his hide to Besaid and back for a slip-up half as…” The soft voice trailed off, nearly quiet enough to be lost in the ambient noise of the canyon. “…half as deadly as this.”

The silence that fell over the pair was laden with a fear that was far too fresh not to be remembered.  _Do not despair, Braska, not for me. We knew the risks when we began this journey. We knew that it would come to an end, one from which neither of us would return. Guardians don’t come back from successful Pilgrimages either. And if I die before the end, at least you will still have Jecht to see you through._

But he was hardly going to add to his summoner’s sorrow by stating such truths aloud. His broad, callused hand laid over his lord’s, a solemn weight. “I won’t die that easily. You have my word.”

Braska gave him a small smile, touched at the edges with sadness. “Don’t make promises that you can’t keep.”

But still Auron held his gaze, and Braska sighed. “I’ll hold you to it, I hope you know. In the meantime, let’s make sure that you  _stay_  alive. Curaga, potions,  _rest_.” He pinned the guardian with a look that brooked no argument, and Auron reined in his protest. “No taking watch, no more effort spent than is necessary, and you will  _tell me when you are in pain_. Am I understood?”

Defeated before he could even object, Auron averted his eyes. “Yes, my lord.”

“Good. You can start now. You probably shouldn’t even have awoken for a while yet, but you were ever the stubborn one, my temperamental guardian.” Braska laid a hand on his chest, and gently but firmly guided him back until he was lying down. White light bloomed into existence around the summoner’s hands, tiny bright motes rising from the glow to dissipate in the evening air as the healing spell wove relief into injured flesh. Though he had been awake but a little while, Auron could feel the toll that even that short of a time had taken. The spell dulled the hurt to a mere ache, but already he was exhausted, and wakefulness began to slip from his grasp.

Braska gently brushed aside his unbound hair from his face. The touch felt like a benediction. “Rest now, dearest friend, and let me be the one to guard you, this once.”

[金]———————————————————

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on tumblr on my Auron RP account.


End file.
